Segment One Fish in the News. Each week the Bailey Brothers start the Pet Fish Talk Show with some fun and interesting stories about fish in the news.     This Chart explains the surrogate brood-stocking technique used to produce a rainbow trout from sterile salmon.   This Crayfish is a research specimen that is being held by University of Virginia Biology Professor, DeForest Mellon.      A Grass Snake, named Sid, tackles a goldfish ten times the size of his head, and snakes like Sid wonder, why we just don't trust them?     In Japan Salmon Spawn Baby Trout in Experiment. Papa salmon plus mama salmon equals ... baby trout? Japanese researchers put a new spin on surrogate parenting as they engineered one fish species to produce another, in a quest to preserve endangered fish. Idaho scientists begin the next big step next month, trying to produce a type of salmon highly endangered in that state — the sockeye — this time using more plentiful trout as surrogate parents. The new method is "one of the best things that has happened in a long time in bringing something new into conservation biology," said University of Idaho zoology professor Joseph Cloud, who is leading the U.S. government-funded sockeye project. The Tokyo University inventors dubbed their method "surrogate broodstocking." They injected newly hatched but sterile Asian masu salmon with sperm-growing cells from rainbow trout — and watched the salmon grow up to produce trout. Click here to read more.   In North America, Scientists ask, Why Are Freshwater Mussels In Decline? North America’s diverse community of freshwater mussels has been on the decline for decades and is presently considered one of the continent’s most endangered groups of animals. The reasons for this continued decline are examined in a special section of the latest issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Mussels are a critical component of the food chain because they are a food source for aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates, and they provide nutrient and energy cycling in streams and lakes by filtering algae, bacteria, and organic matter from the water column. While 35 species of mussels are already extinct, 70 are listed as threatened or endangered, and nearly 180 species are critically imperiled or vulnerable. Species declines are likely due to a number of problems, including construction of dams, sedimentation, population, channelization, dredging, and introduction of exotic species. Click here to read more.   At Valley View Elementary School in Long View, Texas, Students learn Biology through Fish Tank Observation. Words like taxonomy and symbiosis may not be typical in elementary level science curriculum. In fact, some students don't learn about plant and animal classifications or the mutual benefits of different species cohabitating until high school. But the principal at Valley View Elementary School expects that students will gain a plethora of such biological knowledge through a new campus aquatic observation program. Click here to read more.   At the University of Virginia, Inside the Brain of a Crayfish. Voyage to the bottom of the sea, or simply look along the bottom of a clear stream and you may spy lobsters or crayfish waving their antennae. Look closer, and you will see them feeling around with their legs and flicking their antennules – the small, paired sets of miniature feelers at the top of their heads between the long antennae. Both are used for sensing the environment. The long antennae are used for getting a physical feel of an area, such as the contours of a crevice. The smaller antennules are there to both help the creature smell for food or mates or dangerous predators and also to sense motion in the water that also could indicate the presence of food, a fling or danger. The legs also have receptors that detect chemical signatures, preferably those emanating from a nice hunk of dead fish. Click here to read more.   From the Daily Mail in London, England, Hissing Sid's supper of super-sized Goldfish. It may only be small. But, as the picture shows, what this grass snake lacks in size it more than makes up for in ambition. It has taken to eating goldfish more than ten times the size of his head after discovering them in Valerie and Raymond Bell's pond. His eyes may be bigger than his stomach, but that hasn't stopped Sid, the grass snake, from gobbling up goldfish more than ten times the size of his head for dinner. Click here to read more.   In Boise, Idaho, as reported in The Hindu, Maggots to help feed fish and reduce cow manure. Cow manure and fish guts and maggots. It could all soon be dinner — if you are a rainbow trout. University scientists here are working on a new maggot-based feed capable of fattening rainbows for the dinner table, while simultaneously helping slash growing mounds of manure and fish entrails. Aquatic species veterinarian Sophie St. Hilaire suggested there was a way the two industries could help one another — with dairies using a slurry of cow dung and trout intestines to grow maggots rich in fatty acids that make fish better for humans. Click here to read more.   From The Detroit Free Press, Class pets don't have to be cuddly. The yellow school buses are back on the roads, and that means Angel's headed back to school again. He doesn't have a new backpack or a brown bag lunch but that's OK -- because Angel's a turtle, owned by kindergarten teacher Vanessa Santamaria, who chose a turtle for her class at Our Community School in North Hills, Calif., partly because she is allergic to pets with fur. But aside from that benefit, teachers are finding that class pets from the world of the scaly, slimy and buggy can be just as fascinating for kids as a traditional hamster or guinea pig. Click here to read more.   Segment Two   Segment Three   Segment Four   A Big Sincere Thank-you for calling during the show to Dan from Dallas, who is now Dan from San Antonio, Texas, and Evan from Colorado. The Bailey Brothers encourage YOU to call Pet Fish Talk during the show and talk about your pet fish.     Download of this Entire Show Here's how: Right-Click here, then click on "Save Target (or Link) As ...".  Navigate to the folder you prefer, and click on the button labeled "Save". Later you can copy the MP3-file to your iPod or other MP3-player. You can also burn files to CDs, then play them in a CD-player.  Click here to download the PodCast for this show. 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